March 12

WGM – 1912-2004

My grandfather said he was part native.
He said that indians sometimes came to his house in the middle of the night
and “ate twelve cooked eggs in a shot”, he said,
then did a rain dance with him and went back to the bush.

My grandfather grew up mick poor
in Shawville with nine brothers and a sister.
They would bathe in an inch of bathwater
that was negro black by the fifth person.

My grandfather knew kids, he said,
who played with gasoline and firecrackers
and snowblowers he said
and now they are all disfigured and withered.

My grandfather flew bombers out of Malta
and said he caught malaria, but flew anyway.
He held the record for most missions flown by a quebecer
and said he was a pilot, not  a navigator.

My grandfather started rollerblading in ‘91
with a yellow hardhat and moving gloves on.
He, keg chested, wouldn’t say where he fell
but limped on a swollen blue ankle till ’99.

My grandfather died in 2004, thinking it was 1968,
and said Trudeau was prime minister.
He died of a virus they still can’t name,
his storied pride disfigured and  pilot’s chest withered.